Utility of restaging endoscopic ultrasound after neoadjuvant therapy for esophageal cancer

Currently, the most accurate staging test for patients with esophageal cancer is endoscopic ultrasound (EUS). At many institutions, patients who have completed neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy for esophageal cancer undergo restaging EUS before proceeding to surgical resection. The benefit of this restaging procedure remains controversial.

We retrospectively studied consecutive patients who had pre-resection restaging EUS after receiving neoadjuvant treatment to assess accuracy of EUS restaging and determine whether it predicted survival.

Final pathologic data were available for 73 patients who underwent restaging EUS (3 patients had missing T or N stage at one time point). Median time from restaging EUS to resection was 20 days. Restaging EUS accurately predicted pathologic T status in 26 of 72 patients (36%), N status in 44 of 71 (62%), and detected a complete pathologic response in 2 of 19 (10.5%). EUS inappropriately classified 10 patients as T0 N0. Agreement between EUS and pathologic staging was poor for T (κ=0.14) and N status (κ=0.24). Median time from resection to death or last follow-up was 20 months. Pathologic T and N status were each significant predictors of survival (p=0.049 and p=0.0004, respectively). There were nonsignificant trends toward better survival for lower EUS T (p=0.32) and N status (p=0.0946).

Restaging by EUS before resection did not accurately predict pathologic stage in patients with esophageal cancer who received neoadjuvant treatment. As a result of this investigation, our institution no longer routinely performs restaging EUS.